Misplaced Pages

#498501

75-624: According to the terms of the treaty, Albert was the ruler over the Duchy of Austria proper, while the southern territories ( Inner Austria ) were ruled by his brother - Leopold III , ancestor of the Leopoldian line . Albert ruled over Austria until his death in 1395. His only son and heir was also called Albert, he took the rule over his territories as Albert IV and quickly came to terms with his Leopoldian cousins William , Leopold IV , Ernest and Frederick IV . When Albert IV died in 1404 he left

150-428: A march or mark was, in broad terms, any kind of borderland , as opposed to a state's "heartland". More specifically, a march was a border between realms or a neutral buffer zone under joint control of two states in which different laws might apply. In both of these senses, marches served a political purpose, such as providing warning of military incursions or regulating cross-border trade. Marches gave rise to

225-620: A buffer to the Christian states to the north. The Upper March ( al-Tagr al-A'la ), centered on Zaragoza , faced the eastern Marca Hispanica and the western Pyrenees , and included the Distant or Farthest March ( al-Tagr al-Aqsa ). The Middle March ( al-Tagr al-Awsat ), centred on Toledo and later Medinaceli , faced the western Pyrenees and Asturias. The Lower March ( al-Tagr al-Adna ), centred on Mérida and later Badajoz , facing León and Portugal. These too would give rise to Kingdoms,

300-574: A depopulated border region. Such self-sufficient landholders would aid the counts in providing armed men in defense of the Frankish frontier . Aprisio grants (the first ones were in Septimania ) emanated directly from the Carolingian king, and they reinforced central loyalties, to counterbalance the local power exercised by powerful marcher counts. After some early setbacks, Emperor Louis

375-519: A few years later (1327) it passed into the hands of the family of Bourbon . The family of Armagnac held it from 1435 to 1477, when it reverted to the Bourbons, and in 1527 it was seized by King Francis I and became part of the domains of the French crown. It was divided into Haute-Marche (i.e. "Upper Marche") and Basse-Marche (i.e. "Lower Marche"), the estates of the former being in existence until

450-457: A lesser miles with armed retainers, who theoretically owed allegiance through a count to the emperor or, with less fealty , to his Carolingian and Ottonian successors. Such territory had a catlá ("castellan" or lord of the castle) in an area largely defined by a day's ride, and the region became known, like Castile at a later date, as "Catalunya". Counties in the Pyrenees that appeared in

525-440: A loanword from Persian . See Krajina and Military Frontier . The Chinese concept of March is called Fan (藩), referring to feudatory domains and petty kingdoms on the borderlands of the empire. In their initial development during the later Zhou dynasty , the commanderies ( jùn , 郡) functioned as marches, ranking below the dukes ' and kings ' original fiefs and below the more secure and populous counties ( xiàn ). As

600-650: A long career as purely conventional designations under the Holy Roman Empire . In modern German, "Mark" denotes a piece of land that historically was a borderland, as in the following names: From the Carolingian period onwards the name marca begins to appear in Italy, first the Marca Fermana for the mountainous part of Picenum , the Marca Camerinese for the district farther north, including

675-405: A minor son - Duke Albert V of Austria , who remained under the tutelage of his Leopoldine uncles William (until 1406) and Leopold IV (until 1411). Having assumed the rule over Austria, Albert V in 1421 married Elizabeth of Luxembourg , the only child of Emperor Sigismund . After Sigismund's death in 1437, he was crowned King of Hungary and King of Bohemia . In 1438 he also was elected King of

750-654: A part of Umbria , and the Marca Anconitana for the former Pentapolis ( Ancona ). In 1080, the marca Anconitana was given in investiture to Robert Guiscard by Pope Gregory VII , to whom the Countess Matilda ceded the marches of Camerino and Fermo . In 1105, the Emperor Henry IV invested Werner with the whole territory of the three marches, under the name of the March of Ancona . It

825-510: A period of several decades during which the status of the country's rulers was disputed. While in the following years several candidates were elected King of the Romans , none of them were able to control the Empire. It was the ambitious Přemyslid ruler Ottokar II of Bohemia , son of King Wenceslaus I, who took the occasion to take over the rule in the "princeless" lands of late Duke Frederick II

SECTION 10

#1732772606499

900-427: A separate fief about the middle of the 10th century when William III, duke of Aquitaine , gave it to one of his vassals named Boso , who took the title of count . In the 12th century it passed to the family of Lusignan , sometimes also counts of Angoulême , until the death of the childless Count Hugh in 1303, when it was seized by King Philip IV . In 1316 it was made an appanage for his youngest son Charles and

975-403: Is appointed by the king (from 802), the appointment settles on the heirs of a strong count (Sunifred) and the appointment becomes a formality, until the position is declared hereditary (897) and then the count declares independence (by Borrell II in 985). At each stage the de facto situation precedes the de jure assertion, which merely regularizes an existing fact of life. This is feudalism in

1050-631: Is now a part of Årjäng Municipality . In the Middle Ages the area was called Nordmarkerna and was a part of Dalsland and not of Värmland. The name of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom in the midlands of England was Mercia . The name "Mercia" comes from the Old English for "boundary folk", and the traditional interpretation was that the kingdom originated along the frontier between the Welsh and

1125-650: The County of Tyrol was ceded to Duke Rudolf IV of Austria by Countess Margaret in 1363. These territories, together, became known as the Habsburg 'Hereditary Lands', although they were sometimes referred to in sum as Austria. Rudolf established his residence at the Vienna Hofburg Palace and in 1358/59 he had the Privilegium Maius forged to elevate himself to a privileged " archduke " of

1200-795: The Habsburg dynasty , Austria was, until 1246, a feudal possession of the younger House of Babenberg. Margrave Leopold the Generous (1136–1141) was a loyal vassal of the imperial House of Hohenstaufen in the struggle against the Bavarian Welf dynasty . In 1139, after King Conrad III of Germany deposed the Welf duke Henry the Proud , he gave the Bavarian duchy to his half-brother Margrave Leopold. Leopold's brother and successor Henry Jasomirgott

1275-474: The Julian March because of its positioning and as an act of defiance against the hated Austro-Hungarian empire. Marche were repeated on a miniature level, fringing many of the small territorial states of pre- Risorgimento Italy with a ring of smaller dependencies on their borders, which represent territorial marche on a small scale. A map of the Duchy of Mantua in 1702 (Braudel 1984, fig 26) reveals

1350-532: The Luxembourg and Wittelsbach dynasties. The Habsburg Albertinian line was again elevated to the Imperial throne in 1438. Duke Albert V of Austria was chosen King of the Romans as the successor to his House of Luxembourg father-in-law, Emperor Sigismund . Although Albert's reign spanned only one year, he was succeeded by his Leopoldian cousin, Duke Ernest's son, Frederick V , who eventually reunified

1425-752: The Manhartsberg range, marked the border with the Duchy of Bohemia (elevated to a Kingdom in 1198) and the Moravian lands, both of which were held by the Czech Přemyslid dynasty . In the east, the Imperial border with the Kingdom of Hungary (present-day Slovakia ) had gradually shifted towards the plains of the Morava River and the eastern rim of the Vienna Basin . On the right shore of

1500-510: The Old English word mearc and Frankish marka , as well as Old Norse mǫrk meaning "borderland, forest", and derived from merki "boundary, sign", denoting a borderland between two centres of power. In Old English, "mark" meant "boundary" or "sign of a boundary", and the meaning only later evolved to encompass "sign" in general, "impression" and "trace". The Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia took its name from West Saxon mearc "marches", which in this instance referred explicitly to

1575-724: The Taifas of Zaragoza , Toledo , and Badajoz . Denmark means "the march of the Danes ". In Norse , "mark" meant "borderlands" and "forest"; in present-day Norwegian and Swedish it has acquired the meaning "ground", while in Danish it has come to mean "field" or "grassland". Markland was the Norse name of an area in North America discovered by Norwegian Vikings . The forests surrounding Norwegian cities are called "Marka" –

SECTION 20

#1732772606499

1650-485: The Treaty of Neuberg , signed in 1379. Albert retained Austria proper, while Leopold took the remaining territories. In 1402, there was another split in the Leopoldian line , when Duke Ernest took Inner Austria (i.e. the duchies of Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola) and Duke Frederick IV became the ruler of Tyrol and Further Austria . The partitions decisively weakened the Habsburg position, in favour of their rivals from

1725-640: The flag of Austria . His son Leopold VI, sole ruler of the Austrian and Styrian lands from 1198, married the Byzantine princess Theodora Angelina and later married his daughter Margaret to Henry of Hohenstaufen , son of Emperor Frederick II , in 1225. Notable minnesingers like Reinmar von Hagenau and Walther von der Vogelweide were regular guests at the Vienna court and Middle High German poetry flourished. The poem Nibelungenlied probably arose in

1800-515: The gyepű was not controlled by a Marquess. The Gyepű was a strip of land that was specially fortified or made impassable, while gyepűelve was the mostly uninhabited or sparsely inhabited land beyond it. The gyepűelve is much more comparable to modern buffer zones than traditional European marches. Portions of the gyepű were usually guarded by tribes who had joined the Hungarian nation and were granted special rights for their services at

1875-549: The 17th century. From 1470 until the Revolution the province was under the jurisdiction of the parlement of Paris. Several communes of France are named similarly: The Germanic tribes that Romans called Marcomanni , who battled the Romans in the 1st and 2nd centuries, were simply the "men of the borderlands". Marches were territorial organisations created as borderlands in the Carolingian Empire and had

1950-454: The 9th century, in addition to the County of Barcelona , included Cerdanya , Girona and Urgell . Communications were arduous, and the power centre was far away. Primitive feudal entities developed, self-sufficient and agrarian, each ruled by a small hereditary military elite. The sequence in the County of Barcelona exhibits a pattern that emerges similarly in marches everywhere: the count

2025-710: The Anglo-Saxon invaders, although P. Hunter Blair has argued an alternative interpretation that they emerged along the frontier between the Kingdom of Northumbria and the inhabitants of the River Trent valley. Latinizing the Anglo-Saxon term mearc , the border areas between England and Wales were collectively known as the Welsh Marches ( marchia Wallia ), while the native Welsh lands to the west were considered Wales Proper ( pura Wallia ). The Norman lords in

2100-581: The Austrian lands, acclaimed by the local nobility. To substantiate his claims, he married Margaret (about 30 years his senior) in 1252. King Béla IV of Hungary contested this, referring to the Gertrude's third marriage with his relative Roman Danylovich and occupied the Styrian lands. However, Ottokar prevailed as he defeated the Hungarian troops at the Battle of Kressenbrunn . Bohemian king since 1253, he now

2175-556: The Austrian lands. However, Leopold's son, Duke Frederick II the Warlike , entered into fierce conflicts soon after his accession in 1230, not only with the Austrian nobility, but also with King Wenceslaus I of Bohemia , King Andrew II of Hungary and even with Emperor Frederick II for the alleged entanglement in the rebellion of the duke's brother-in-law Henry of Hohenstaufen. The latter earned him an Imperial ban and an expulsion from Vienna in 1236. Though he could later reconcile with

2250-837: The Bavarian March of Austria after King Otto I of Germany 's victory at the 955 Battle of Lechfeld . In 976 Emperor Otto II enfeoffed the Babenberg count Leopold the Illustrious with the Austrian margraviate. A large-scale German settlement ( Ostsiedlung ) along the Danube down to the border with Hungary followed, which ultimately disrupted the Slavic continuity between the West Slavic ( Slovak ) and South Slavic ( Slovene ) lands. Although today closely associated with

2325-655: The Danube, the lower Leitha River marked the Imperial–Hungarian border for centuries. In the south, Austria bordered the Styrian lands which were likewise elevated to a duchy, and unified with Austria in 1192. The territory originally inhabited by Celts was conquered by the Roman Empire at the end of the 1st century BC . Following the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the late 5th century,

Albertinian Line - Misplaced Pages Continue

2400-693: The Emperor, the border conflict with Hungary culminated in several clashes of arms after 1242, after King Béla IV of Hungary marched into Austria to reconquer occupied lands. Duke Frederick was killed at the 1246 Battle of the Leitha River , whereby the Babenberg line became extinct in the male line. According to feudal law, the immediate heritable fees fell back to the suzerain , the Holy Roman Emperor . However, Emperor Frederick II, in

2475-580: The Empire, peaking under the reign of Leopold V the Virtous (1177–1194) and Leopold VI the Glorious (1194–1230). In 1186, they signed the Georgenberg Pact with the first and last Otakar duke Ottokar IV of Styria and, upon his death in 1192, acquired the adjacent Styrian lands in the south, which were ruled with Austria in personal union until 1918. They also expanded their territory into

2550-405: The Empire. The following two centuries were turbulent for the duchy. Under Habsburg rule, several inquisitorial persecutions against Waldensians were carried out, notably by the cleric Petrus Zwicker in the late 14th century. Following the brief, yet eventful, rule of Duke Rudolf IV, his brothers Albert III and Leopold III divided the Austrian domains between themselves, in accordance with

2625-585: The English king passed through Austria on his way home, Leopold had him abducted and arrested at Dürnstein Castle . Handed over to Emperor Henry VI , Richard was only released after paying an enormous ransom, and the duke used his share to lay out the Wiener Neustadt fortification near the Hungarian border. According to legend, the emperor granted him permission to bear the red-white-red colors that became

2700-703: The Habsburg territories, after the extinctions of the Albertinian line (1457) and the Elder Tyrolean line (1490). Duke Frederick was crowned Holy Roman Emperor (as Frederick III) in 1452; he formally acknowledged the elevation of Austria to an archduchy one year later, whereafter all Habsburg princes bore the archducal title. Only two non-Habsburgs reigned the Empire between 1438 and 1806, when Emperor Francis II resigned. 48°13′N 16°22′E  /  48.217°N 16.367°E  / 48.217; 16.367 March (territory) In medieval Europe ,

2775-654: The Holy Roman Empire . The right of primogeniture was implemented with the Treaty of Rheinfelden one year later. Rudolf's descendants ruled Austria and Styria until 1918. In the 14th and 15th centuries, the Habsburgs accumulated further provinces in the southeastern part of the Empire: the Duchy of Carinthia with the March of Carniola , initially ceded to the House of Gorizia , came under Habsburg rule in 1335;

2850-563: The Kingdom of Hungary and was controlled by a Count or Countess. In addition to the Carolingian Marca Hispanica , Iberia was home to several marches set up by the native states. The future kingdoms of Portugal and Castile were founded as marcher counties intended to protect the Kingdom of León from the Cordoban Emirate , to the south and east respectively. Likewise, Córdoba set up its own marches as

2925-616: The Pious ventured beyond the province of Septimania and eventually took Barcelona from the Moorish emir in 801. Thus he established a foothold in the borderland between the Franks and the Moors. The Carolingian "Hispanic Marches" ( Marca Hispanica ) became a buffer zone ruled by a number of feudal lords, among them the count of Barcelona . It had its own outlying territories, each ruled by

3000-459: The Romans (as Albert II) and Emperor -to-be, anticipating the powers of the later Habsburg monarchy , however, he died the next year. The Hungarian throne passed to Polish king Władysław III against the fierce resistance of Albert's widow Elizabeth. Albert had left a son who was born only after his death, thereby known as Ladislaus the Posthumous. Ladislaus had to wait for many years for

3075-509: The Warlike. Referring to the Privilegium Minus , Pope Innocent IV, against the feudal principle of patrilineal inheritance, confirmed the hereditary rights of Frederick's sister Margaret, widow of Henry of Hohenstaufen, and his niece Gertrude , widow of Ottokar's elder brother Přemyslid Margrave Vladislaus of Moravia who died in 1247. Upon the death of Gertrude's second husband, Margrave Herman VI of Baden , in 1250, Ottokar invaded

Albertinian Line - Misplaced Pages Continue

3150-569: The Welsh Marches were to become the new Marcher Lords . The title Earl of March is at least two distinct feudal titles : one in the northern marches, as an alternative title for the Earl of Dunbar (c. 1290 in the Peerage of Scotland ); and one, that was held by the family of Mortimer (1328 in the Peerage of England ), in the west Welsh Marches . The Scottish Marches is a term for

3225-427: The area was invaded by several Germanic tribes and from the 6th century onward settled by Avars as well as by Slavic tribes, who about 600 founded the independent principality of Carantania in the south. The Avar Khaganate established in 567 comprised most of the later Austrian march up to the Enns river, where it bordered on the German stem duchy of Bavaria. Temporarily part of Samo's Empire from 631 to 658,

3300-407: The border regions on both sides of the border between England and Scotland. From the Norman conquest of England until the reign of King James VI of Scotland , who also became King James I of England , border clashes were common and the monarchs of both countries relied on Marcher Lords to defend the frontier areas known as the Marches. They were hand-picked for their suitability for the challenges

3375-438: The borders, such as the Székelys , Pechenegs and Cumans . A ban on settlement north of Niš by the Byzantine Empire in the twelfth century helped to establish uninhabited marchland between the empire's territory and Hungary. The Hungarian gyepű originates from the Turkish yapi meaning palisade . During the 17th and 18th centuries these borderlands were called Markland in the area of Transylvania that bordered with

3450-416: The commanderies formed the front lines between the major states , however, their military strength and strategic importance were typically much greater than the counties'. Over time, however, the commanderies were eventually developed into regular provinces and then discontinued entirely during the Tang dynasty reforms. The European concept of marches applies just as well to the fief of Matsumae clan on

3525-402: The dominion as the first monarch of the Habsburg dynasty in 1276. Thereafter, Austria became the patrimony and ancestral homeland of the dynasty and the nucleus of the Habsburg monarchy . In 1453, the archducal title of the Austrian rulers, invented by Duke Rudolf IV in the forged Privilegium Maius of 1359, was officially acknowledged by the Habsburg emperor Frederick III . Initially,

3600-453: The duchy was comparatively small in area, roughly comprising the modern-day Austrian state of Lower Austria . As a former border march , it was located on the eastern periphery of the Empire, on the northern and southern shores of the Danube River, east of ("below") the Enns tributary. Drosendorf , Raabs , Laa and other fortifications along the Thaya River , north of the historic Waldviertel and Weinviertel regions and separated by

3675-402: The early ninth century, Charlemagne issued his new kind of land grant, the aprisio , which redisposed land belonging to the Imperial fisc in deserted areas, and included special rights and immunities that resulted in a range of independence of action. Historians interpret the aprisio both as the basis of feudalism and in economic and military terms as a mechanism to entice settlers to

3750-535: The independent, though socially and economically dependent arc of small territories from the principality of Castiglione in the northwest across the south to the duchy of Mirandola southeast of Mantua : the lords of Bozolo , Sabioneta , Dosolo , Guastalla , the count of Novellare . In medieval Hungary the system of gyepű and gyepűelve , effective until the mid-13th century, can be considered as marches even though in its organisation it shows major differences from Western European feudal marches. For one thing,

3825-451: The larger landscape. Some counts aspired to the characteristically Frankish (Germanic) title " Margrave of the Hispanic March", a "margrave" being a graf ("count") of the march. The early history of Andorra provides a fairly typical career of another such march county, the only modern survivor in the Pyrenees of the Hispanic Marches. The province of France called Marche ( Occitan : la Marcha ), sometimes Marche Limousine ,

SECTION 50

#1732772606499

3900-399: The last years of his rule, was weakened by the struggle against Pope Innocent IV , and was stuck in the Italian Wars between the Guelphs and Ghibellines . His death in 1250 and the death of his only surviving son King Conrad IV four years later ended the line of Hohenstaufen rulers, only eight years after the extinction of the Babenberg dynasty. The extinction led to the Great Interregnum ,

3975-552: The marches were given the power to terminate indictments. In later years, wardens of the Irish marches took Irish tenants. Marquis , marchese and margrave ( Markgraf ) all had their origins in feudal lords who held trusted positions in the borderlands. The English title was a foreign importation from France, tested out tentatively in 1385 by Richard II , but not naturalized until the mid-15th century, and now more often spelled " marquess ". The specific subdivisions of Armenia are each called marz, մարզ (pl. "marzer, մարզեր"),

4050-402: The marches. For example, the forests surrounding Oslo are called Nordmarka , Østmarka and Vestmarka  – i.e. the northern, eastern and western marches. In Norway, there are – or have been – the counties: In Finland, mark occurs in the following placenames in Satakunta : In Värmland in Sweden , Nordmark Hundred was the frontier area near the border to Norway. Almost all of it

4125-399: The moment when he could start to govern his territories. Heir of both the Kingdom of Bohemia and the Kingdom of Hungary , he remained under the tutelage of his Leopoldian cousin Frederick V , who in 1440 had been elected King of the Romans upon Albert's death. Ladislaus' claims to Hungary were acknowledged after King Władysław had been killed in the 1444 Battle of Varna , however, he became

4200-409: The name of his earldom for several reasons: Welsh marches referred to several counties, whereby the title signified superiority compared to usual single county-based earldoms. Mercia was an ancient kingdom. His wife's ancestors had been Counts of La Marche and Angouleme in France. In Ireland , a hybrid system of marches existed which was condemned as barbaric at the time. The Irish marches constituted

4275-431: The old Bavarian lands west of the Enns River, along the Traun to the city of Linz , the future capital of Upper Austria . In 1191, Duke Leopold V joined the Third Crusade and the siege of Acre . Once the city was conquered and occupied, he picked a fierce quarrel with King Richard the Lionheart , allegedly over Leopold's raising of his Babenberg banner beside the royal flags of Richard and Philip II of France . When

4350-399: The real ruler only after the death of regent John Hunyadi in 1456. As he had no children, his sudden death in 1457 ended the history of the Albertinian line. Its holdings in Austria reverted to his second cousin Duke Frederick V. Line extinct Duchy of Austria The Duchy of Austria ( Austriae Ducatus   ( Latin ) ; Herzogtuom Osteriche   ( Middle High German ) )

4425-411: The responsibilities presented. Patrick Dunbar, 8th Earl of Dunbar , a descendant of the Earls of Northumbria was recognized in the end of the 13th century to use the name March as his earldom in Scotland, otherwise known as Dunbar, Lothian, and Northumbrian border. Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March , Regent of England together with Isabella of France during the minority of her son, Edward III ,

4500-422: The site of the later Hofburg Palace . He also founded Schottenstift Abbey as the Babenberg proprietary church , settled with Irish monks. The Austrian lands prospered, due to their favorable location on the Danube, as an important trade route from Krems and Mautern via Vienna down to Hungary and the Byzantine Empire . For a short time, the Babenbergs came to be one of the most influential ruling families in

4575-420: The south. When he failed to be elected King of the Romans in 1273, he contested the election of the successful candidate, the Swabian count Rudolf of Habsburg . Nevertheless, Rudolf was able to secure his rule as the first actual German king after the Great Interregnum. By his Imperial authority he seized Ottokar's "alienated" territories and added them to his already extensive homelands in Swabia. King Ottokar

SECTION 60

#1732772606499

4650-462: The southern tip of Hokkaidō which was at Japan's northern border with the Ainu people of Hokkaidō , known as Ezo at the time. In 1590, this land was granted to the Kakizaki clan, who took the name Matsumae from then on. The Lords of Matsumae, as they are sometimes called, were exempt from owing rice to the shōgun in tribute, and from the sankin-kōtai system established by Tokugawa Ieyasu , under which most lords ( daimyōs ) had to spend half

4725-412: The territory between English and Irish-dominated lands, which appeared as soon as the English did and were called by King John to be fortified. By the 14th century, they had become defined as the land between The Pale and the rest of Ireland. Local Anglo-Irish and Gaelic chieftains who acted as powerful spokespeople were recognised by the Crown and given a degree of independence. Uniquely, the keepers of

4800-444: The territory was under constant attack by the Carolingian forces of Charlemagne from 791 onward. About 800, Charlemagne, having won several victories against the Avars, established a frontier march in the region between the Enns and Raab rivers, called the Avar March , part of the marcha orientalis . The East Frankish margraviate was again lost to the invading Magyars at the 907 Battle of Pressburg , and re-established as

4875-407: The territory's position on the Anglo-Saxon frontier with the Romano-British to the west. During the Frankish Carolingian dynasty , usage of the word spread throughout Europe. The name "Denmark" preserves the Old Norse cognates merki ("boundary") mǫrk ("wood", "forest") up to the present. Following the Anschluss , the Nazi German government revived the old name "Ostmark" for Austria. In

4950-399: The titles marquess (masculine) or marchioness (feminine). The word "march" derives ultimately from a Proto-Indo-European root * mereg- , meaning "edge, boundary". The root * mereg- produced Latin margo ("margin"), Old Irish mruig ("borderland"), Welsh bro ("region, border, valley") and Persian and Armenian marz ("borderland"). The Proto-Germanic *marko gave rise to

5025-407: The west by Poitou. It embraced the greater part of the modern département of Creuse , a considerable part of the northern Haute-Vienne , and a fragment of Indre , up to Saint-Benoît-du-Sault . Its area was about 1,900 square miles (4,900 km ) its capital was Charroux and later Guéret , and among its other principal towns were Dorat , Bellac and Confolens . Marche first appeared as

5100-425: The year at court (in the capital of Edo ). By guarding the border, rather than conquering or colonizing Ezo, the Matsumae, in essence, made the majority of the island an Ainu reservation. This also meant that Ezo, and the Kurile Islands beyond, were left essentially open to Russian colonization. However, the Russians never did colonize Ezo, and the marches were officially eliminated during the Meiji Restoration in

5175-432: Was a medieval principality of the Holy Roman Empire , established in 1156 by the Privilegium Minus , when the Margraviate of Austria ( Ostarrîchi ) was detached from Bavaria and elevated to a duchy in its own right. After the ruling dukes of the House of Babenberg became extinct in male line, there was as much as three decades of rivalry on inheritance and rulership, until the German king Rudolf I took over

5250-483: Was a usurper who had deposed, and allegedly arranged the murder of, King Edward II. He was created an earl in September 1328 at the height of his de facto rule. His wife was Joan de Geneville, 2nd Baroness Geneville , whose mother, Jeanne of Lusignan was one of the heiresses of the French Counts of La Marche and Angouleme . His family, Mortimer Lords of Wigmore , had been border lords and leaders of defenders of Welsh marches for centuries. He selected March as

5325-400: Was afterwards once more recovered by the Church and governed by papal legates as part of the Papal States . The Marche became part of the Kingdom of Italy in 1860. After Italian unification in the 1860s, Austria-Hungary still controlled territory Italian nationalists still claimed as part of Italy . One of these territories was Austrian Littoral , which Italian nationalists began to call

5400-637: Was enfeoffed with Bavaria in 1141. In 1156, Hohenstaufen Emperor Frederick Barbarossa approached a settlement with the Welfs. At the 1156 Imperial Diet in Regensburg , Henry Jasomirgott had to renounce the Bavarian duchy in favor of Henry the Lion . In compensation, the Babenberg margraviate was elevated to an equal duchy, confirmed by numerous privileges granted by the Privilegium Minus on 17 September. The new Austrian duke took his residence at Vienna at

5475-526: Was finally defeated and killed by the united Austrian and Hungarian forces in the 1278 Battle on the Marchfeld . Rudolf married his daughter Judith off to Ottokar's son Wenceslaus II , who retained the Bohemian kingdom. Having reached an agreement with the prince-electors , he granted the Austrian domains to his sons Albert and Rudolf II at the 1282 Diet of Augsburg, elevating them to Princes of

5550-521: Was originally a small border district between the Duchy of Aquitaine and the domains of the Frankish kings in central France, partly of Limousin and partly of Poitou . Its area was increased during the 13th century and remained the same until the French Revolution . Marche was bounded on the north by Berry , on the east by Bourbonnais and Auvergne ; on the south by Limousin itself and on

5625-626: Was sole ruler of the Bohemian, Moravian, Austrian and Styrian lands—an anticipation of the early modern Habsburg monarchy after 1526. In 1269, Ottokar also effectively controlled the Duchy of Carinthia , with Carniola and the Windic March further in the south. He controlled, in all, a Central European realm stretching from the Polish border in the Sudetes towards the Adriatic coast in

#498501